Post college graduation I spent three years living in Indianapolis. It wasn’t that I was particularly unhappy, it’s just that many aspects of my life were largely unsatisfying. I knew there was something bigger and better I could be doing, so I took action and made a major change. So I quit my job and moved to New York without finding a new one.

In hindsight, making this decision has turned out to be a very good one. I’m still very conflicted when I reflect back on those three years professionally. I can’t decide if that needs to be the subject of an incredibly long blog post or not. For now I’ll defer to an aphorism Dr. Dugi would always tell me in college which was, “even a blind pig finds an acorn.” Meaning, try to find something good or beneficial about everything you do or more likely are forced to do.

Fast forward six months. I’m living and working in the greatest city in the world. I helped found a non-profit called CodeSpark. I’m doing exciting things every single day. More specifically, I’m working at a startup called inquvision. Finally working at a startup is every bit as exciting as I thought it would be. It’s also every bit as difficult, but hard work is very rewarding. When I joined, the company was primarily focused on branding itself as a technology consulting firm on Wall Street (our offices are next to Trinity Church), which it still very much is. However, I’m working less on the consulting side and more on the product development side.

I’m given a vague description of a web application that needs to be built and then take that idea fully through the execution process. I do everything from the planning phase to working with our engineering team to work with me on the technical aspects that are beyond my grasp. It’s very satisfying to be doing work that blends creative, technical and problem solving skills on a daily basis. One of my first finished web products should be done soon at which point I’ll be happy to show it off here. Until then I can’t really explain the specifics of what I’m working on (also it wouldn’t make sense without a demo).

So that’s what I’m up to these days. I’m still dreaming, but these days I’m a few steps closer to realizing my dreams.

Computer Science is lacking in schools (even at the national level). Our organization gives kids the fundamental knowledge and resource to improve their prospects. America is behind in computer and science education. Few kids know or are interested in computer science, especially minority and female youth. We want to equip underrepresented young people with such valuable skills for future career opportunities. Lastly, we want to at the very least cultivate their interest. Therefore, we seek to make these learning opportunities as both educational and fun as possible.

In a nutshell, I’m trying to create an organization that I would have wanted to be a part of as a kid. I had a decent computer science education in high school, but in hindsight my experience there made me decide to go down a different path in college. We are trying to find students like that and show them that there is a much more fun side of the whole thing. Now that I’m working in technology I’d like to make sure that other students who might be interested in computer science have a better chance to figure that out.

I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. Mainly, I’ve really neglected this space. Only one post in three months time. Not good. The other reason is for seo (search engine optimization) reasons. I’ll elaborate on this in a full post, but I’m also using this as an experiment to test assumptions about the changing influence social has had on search results.

Predictions on how far I make it?

The plan is to post on Tumblr 10-12 times a week and not have much of a filter. If I run across something half-way humorous or interesting it will get posted without exception. Occasionally I’ll remind all my Twitter followers that I share all this great stuff and post links there. I probably won’t ever post links to those things here. That way I can satisfy that inner urge to compulsively share everything with everyone around me.

We will see how this works out.

Six years ago in my dorm room I registered the domain “kylelibra.com.” I had to send some company in Utah a check because I didn’t have a credit card at the time. Six years later it is still here, or still sitting in the same data center out in Utah. I’ve haven’t given this space much attention over the past few months (years?). I’ve let traffic decline to next to nothing. There hasn’t really been a focus since I graduated from college. Some changes are definitely needed. Over the next few weeks I’ll be making some major ones, stay tuned.

Regardless, here are the most popular posts of 2009 from my blog. Some were obvious attempts to game search engines and generate more traffic. The popularity rating is a combination of views, searches, comments, trackbacks, etc., that is automatically tracked for all posts. The percentage next to each post is the relative popularity rating out of a maximum of 100.

• 37 Interesting Twitter Accounts to Follow (100%)
• The Sarah Palin Porn, “Nailin’ Paylin” (46%)
• What is Team Matsuflex? (45%)
• The Complete Story of How I Won a Free Ford Fiesta (for 6 months) (42%)
• Transylvania Book Heist Reenactment Video (37%)
• Kanye West responds to South Park (36%)
• Watch TV for Free (35%)
• Monday Morning Distraction: 99 Bricks (35%)
• Monday Morning Distraction: Pandemic 2 (34%)
• My Final Post (34%)